Mr. Crawford was an African-American man murdered by a lynch mob. He was born during the early Reconstruction Era, at the end of the Civil War. His father became the owner of a modest acreage of cotton fields on the Little River, about seven miles west of Abbeville, which he worked with his son Anthony who was an ambitious and literate child. Anthony routinely walked seven miles to school in Abbeville. He inherited the land after his father's death & increased it from 1883 through 1903.
By 1916, his land holdings had expanded to 427 acres (as much as 600, according to some sources). He was the father of twelve sons and four daughters. Many of them had settled on plots adjoining that of their father. With a net worth of approximately $20,000 to $25,000 in 1916 dollars, Crawford was without doubt one of the richest men in Abbeville County. Around 1895, Crawford co-founded the Industrial Union of Abbeville County, which was devoted to the "material, moral and intellectual advance of the colored people".
He was also known for his refusal to tolerate disrespect or defiance in any form. Once, when his church's preacher delivered a sermon decrying Crawford's meddling in church affairs, Crawford jumped out of his seat, struck the man and fired him on the spot. This extended even to whites: "The day a white man hits me is the day I die", he was quoted as having said to his children. After his death, the Charleston News & Courier (now the Post & Courier) described Crawford as "rich, for a negro, & he was insolent along with it".
On October 21, 1916, Crawford was taking two loads of cotton & a load of seed into Abbeville. He had a disagreement over the price of cottonseed with W.D. Barksdale, a white store owner. After Crawford left the store, one of Barksdale's employees followed him outside & hit him on the head with an ax handle. Crawford called for help, which drew the attention of Sheriff R.M. Burts. The Sheriff arrested Crawford (most likely for his own protection) as a mob of angry whites was already beginning to gather. Crawford was held at the jail briefly then released later that day on $15 bail. The police allowed him to exit from a side door, but the mob saw him anyway & chased him into a nearby cotton mill. Crawford had hid in the boiler room. A salesman named McKinny Cann entered the boiler room following Crawford. Crawford grabbed a hammer & knocked Cann out. Although the mill workers attempted to stop it, Crawford was stabbed & severely beaten by the mob. Sheriff R.M. Burts arrested Crawford once more, much to the chagrin of the mob of whites. The sheriff could only get Crawford away from the mob by promising Cann's brothers he wouldn't try to sneak Crawford out of town before the full extent of McKinny Cann's injuries were known. As it happened, Cann was not badly hurt, although Crawford was. He was treated by Doctor C.C. Gamble, who also was mayor of Abbeville, & also happened to be a relative of a man named James Rodgers who had been shot in December 1905 during an altercation with Crawford's sons. Gamble announced that Crawford would likely die from his wounds. The fear that Crawford might die before the mob could get to him collided with the fear that the sheriff might spirit him out of town. Around 3 p.m., about 200 white men besieged the jail, captured & disarmed Sheriff Burts, & abducted Crawford. Crawford was dragged through the black section of town with a rope around his neck. The mob then stole a lumber wagon from a black driver & used it to take Crawford to a fairground nearby. Crawford was lynched from a tree there while armed whites used his body for target practice.
The paper's headline the next day read "Negro Strung Up & Shot to Pieces". After dark, the county coroner, F.W.R. Nance, took a jury to the fairground & cut down Crawford's mutilated remains. The coroner found Crawford had died "at the hands of parties unknown". South Carolina governor Richard Irvine Manning III was quick to denounce the murder. He ordered a full investigation of the crime by both Sheriff Burts & State Solicitor Robert Archer Cooper, exhorting them to hand down indictments of the mob participants. Many Abbeville residents were held & questioned, including Cann's three brothers, but it became increasingly apparent that no resident of Abbeville would testify against any member of the mob; moreover it would be virtually impossible to select an impartial jury from the ranks of the city. Manning called for the trial's venue to be moved to a different county, although nothing came of it. Meanwhile, a document purportedly written by members of the lynch mob themselves was published in the Abbeville Scimitar: We are ALL responsible for the conditions that caused Crawford's death. Those involved might have gone too far, but they are white men & Crawford was black. The black must submit to the white or the white will destroy . There were several hundred who participated in this lynching, & nearly ALL the others were well-wishers, therefore to pick out a few to satisfy a newly imported mawkish sentiment, is pitiful & cowardly. Men of Abbeville, the eyes of all white men are upon you. Acquit yourselves as white men. The conditions made by US ALL, make us all responsible, so let's not ask only eight to shoulder the whole burden. Answer a mawkish sentiment generated by hypocrisy & craven fear with the ringing verdict, Not guilty.. Whether or not this document was genuine is open to question. The publisher of the Scimitar, William P. "Bull Moose" Beard, was a white supremacist. Beard & his editorials in the Scimitar openly ridiculed Governor Manning's attempts to bring any members of the mob to trial, writing that Crawford's murder was "inevitable & racially justifiable". Other newspapers in the area took a different tone, like the Press & Banner, which pointed out that by driving away cheap African-American labor, the lynch mobs were bankrupting South Carolina farmers. These two facets of the debate were indicative of a growing schism in the South: middle- & upper-class whites were beginning to disapprove of lynchings, & the belief that lynch mobs were an "expansive luxury" the South could no longer afford was beginning to take root. In a civic meeting at the Abbeville courthouse on October 23, 1917, the white citizens of Abbeville, including many members of the lynch mob, voted to expel the remainder of Crawford's family from South Carolina, & to seize their considerable property holdings. They also voted to close down all the black-owned businesses in Abbeville. A consortium of white businessmen, worrying about the economic effect of such a decision, opposed these decisions. After the meeting, they personally spoke with Crawford's family & detailed the situation to them. The Crawfords agreed to leave by mid-November. This allayed the urgency of the voting whites at the courthouse, but it was just a delaying tactic. The white businessmen spent the intervening time building a consensus against the mob sentiment, & on November 6, 1917, they announced they had declared "war" on those who had voted to expel the Crawfords. Resolutions were passed to promise equal protection to citizens both black & white, denounce extra-judicial action, to bring up the possibilities that a local militia might be created, or that federal intervention might be invited, to prevent such activities in the future. In addition to the racist motivations of those who wished to uphold the white status quo over an African-American man who maintained a defiantly confident & aggressive posture in the presence of whites, & the generally poor tenor of race relations in Abbeville in general, historians have also speculated that the mob was partially motivated by a desire to humiliate & discredit Abbeville Sheriff R.W. Burts, &, by extension, Governor Manning, by local white politicians. Burts came from a wealthy family, & he had been unexpectedly appointed to his post by the comparatively enlightened & genteel Manning, despite Burts' lack of law enforcement qualifications. Many local white politicians were angered by this, & thought the job should have gone to Police Chief Joe Johnson. Coming up for election, Burts later defeated candidates Jess Cann (brother to McKinny Cann) & George White, two men who would play instrumental roles in the actions of the lynch mob. In the primary of South Carolina's gubernatorial election in July 1916, three months before Crawford's lynching, Manning had debated former governor (& future senator) of South Carolina Coleman Livingston Blease in Abbeville. Blease was known for his racist rhetoric, & he hurled invective at Manning's progressive approach toward race relations, claiming that this attitude had specifically incited a number of assaults by black men against white men & women. In the primary, Blease overwhelmingly took Abbeville County, but Manning narrowly won the state in a runoff election. An acolyte of Blease's, a young lawyer named Sam Adams, also made an unsuccessful run at state legislature. Perhaps to increase his local political fortunes, he bragged of his participation in the mob, & even that it was he who had placed the rope around Crawford's neck. Adams even specifically asked William Beard to print in his paper (the Scimitar) that Adams had been the ringleader of the group.
In 2005, the 109th Congress of the United States Senate passed Resolution 39, which was a formal apology to African-Americans for Congress's failure to pass any kind of anti-lynching legislation despite over 200 anti-lynching bills having been introduced to Congress. The resolution was issued before the descendants of Anthony Crawford, among other surviving descendants of lynching victims, & marked the first occasion that Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any reason, whereas Congress had in the past apologized to other ethnic groups (e.g. Japanese-Americans) for the actions of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)
By 1916, his land holdings had expanded to 427 acres (as much as 600, according to some sources). He was the father of twelve sons and four daughters. Many of them had settled on plots adjoining that of their father. With a net worth of approximately $20,000 to $25,000 in 1916 dollars, Crawford was without doubt one of the richest men in Abbeville County. Around 1895, Crawford co-founded the Industrial Union of Abbeville County, which was devoted to the "material, moral and intellectual advance of the colored people".
He was also known for his refusal to tolerate disrespect or defiance in any form. Once, when his church's preacher delivered a sermon decrying Crawford's meddling in church affairs, Crawford jumped out of his seat, struck the man and fired him on the spot. This extended even to whites: "The day a white man hits me is the day I die", he was quoted as having said to his children. After his death, the Charleston News & Courier (now the Post & Courier) described Crawford as "rich, for a negro, & he was insolent along with it".
On October 21, 1916, Crawford was taking two loads of cotton & a load of seed into Abbeville. He had a disagreement over the price of cottonseed with W.D. Barksdale, a white store owner. After Crawford left the store, one of Barksdale's employees followed him outside & hit him on the head with an ax handle. Crawford called for help, which drew the attention of Sheriff R.M. Burts. The Sheriff arrested Crawford (most likely for his own protection) as a mob of angry whites was already beginning to gather. Crawford was held at the jail briefly then released later that day on $15 bail. The police allowed him to exit from a side door, but the mob saw him anyway & chased him into a nearby cotton mill. Crawford had hid in the boiler room. A salesman named McKinny Cann entered the boiler room following Crawford. Crawford grabbed a hammer & knocked Cann out. Although the mill workers attempted to stop it, Crawford was stabbed & severely beaten by the mob. Sheriff R.M. Burts arrested Crawford once more, much to the chagrin of the mob of whites. The sheriff could only get Crawford away from the mob by promising Cann's brothers he wouldn't try to sneak Crawford out of town before the full extent of McKinny Cann's injuries were known. As it happened, Cann was not badly hurt, although Crawford was. He was treated by Doctor C.C. Gamble, who also was mayor of Abbeville, & also happened to be a relative of a man named James Rodgers who had been shot in December 1905 during an altercation with Crawford's sons. Gamble announced that Crawford would likely die from his wounds. The fear that Crawford might die before the mob could get to him collided with the fear that the sheriff might spirit him out of town. Around 3 p.m., about 200 white men besieged the jail, captured & disarmed Sheriff Burts, & abducted Crawford. Crawford was dragged through the black section of town with a rope around his neck. The mob then stole a lumber wagon from a black driver & used it to take Crawford to a fairground nearby. Crawford was lynched from a tree there while armed whites used his body for target practice.
The paper's headline the next day read "Negro Strung Up & Shot to Pieces". After dark, the county coroner, F.W.R. Nance, took a jury to the fairground & cut down Crawford's mutilated remains. The coroner found Crawford had died "at the hands of parties unknown". South Carolina governor Richard Irvine Manning III was quick to denounce the murder. He ordered a full investigation of the crime by both Sheriff Burts & State Solicitor Robert Archer Cooper, exhorting them to hand down indictments of the mob participants. Many Abbeville residents were held & questioned, including Cann's three brothers, but it became increasingly apparent that no resident of Abbeville would testify against any member of the mob; moreover it would be virtually impossible to select an impartial jury from the ranks of the city. Manning called for the trial's venue to be moved to a different county, although nothing came of it. Meanwhile, a document purportedly written by members of the lynch mob themselves was published in the Abbeville Scimitar: We are ALL responsible for the conditions that caused Crawford's death. Those involved might have gone too far, but they are white men & Crawford was black. The black must submit to the white or the white will destroy . There were several hundred who participated in this lynching, & nearly ALL the others were well-wishers, therefore to pick out a few to satisfy a newly imported mawkish sentiment, is pitiful & cowardly. Men of Abbeville, the eyes of all white men are upon you. Acquit yourselves as white men. The conditions made by US ALL, make us all responsible, so let's not ask only eight to shoulder the whole burden. Answer a mawkish sentiment generated by hypocrisy & craven fear with the ringing verdict, Not guilty.. Whether or not this document was genuine is open to question. The publisher of the Scimitar, William P. "Bull Moose" Beard, was a white supremacist. Beard & his editorials in the Scimitar openly ridiculed Governor Manning's attempts to bring any members of the mob to trial, writing that Crawford's murder was "inevitable & racially justifiable". Other newspapers in the area took a different tone, like the Press & Banner, which pointed out that by driving away cheap African-American labor, the lynch mobs were bankrupting South Carolina farmers. These two facets of the debate were indicative of a growing schism in the South: middle- & upper-class whites were beginning to disapprove of lynchings, & the belief that lynch mobs were an "expansive luxury" the South could no longer afford was beginning to take root. In a civic meeting at the Abbeville courthouse on October 23, 1917, the white citizens of Abbeville, including many members of the lynch mob, voted to expel the remainder of Crawford's family from South Carolina, & to seize their considerable property holdings. They also voted to close down all the black-owned businesses in Abbeville. A consortium of white businessmen, worrying about the economic effect of such a decision, opposed these decisions. After the meeting, they personally spoke with Crawford's family & detailed the situation to them. The Crawfords agreed to leave by mid-November. This allayed the urgency of the voting whites at the courthouse, but it was just a delaying tactic. The white businessmen spent the intervening time building a consensus against the mob sentiment, & on November 6, 1917, they announced they had declared "war" on those who had voted to expel the Crawfords. Resolutions were passed to promise equal protection to citizens both black & white, denounce extra-judicial action, to bring up the possibilities that a local militia might be created, or that federal intervention might be invited, to prevent such activities in the future. In addition to the racist motivations of those who wished to uphold the white status quo over an African-American man who maintained a defiantly confident & aggressive posture in the presence of whites, & the generally poor tenor of race relations in Abbeville in general, historians have also speculated that the mob was partially motivated by a desire to humiliate & discredit Abbeville Sheriff R.W. Burts, &, by extension, Governor Manning, by local white politicians. Burts came from a wealthy family, & he had been unexpectedly appointed to his post by the comparatively enlightened & genteel Manning, despite Burts' lack of law enforcement qualifications. Many local white politicians were angered by this, & thought the job should have gone to Police Chief Joe Johnson. Coming up for election, Burts later defeated candidates Jess Cann (brother to McKinny Cann) & George White, two men who would play instrumental roles in the actions of the lynch mob. In the primary of South Carolina's gubernatorial election in July 1916, three months before Crawford's lynching, Manning had debated former governor (& future senator) of South Carolina Coleman Livingston Blease in Abbeville. Blease was known for his racist rhetoric, & he hurled invective at Manning's progressive approach toward race relations, claiming that this attitude had specifically incited a number of assaults by black men against white men & women. In the primary, Blease overwhelmingly took Abbeville County, but Manning narrowly won the state in a runoff election. An acolyte of Blease's, a young lawyer named Sam Adams, also made an unsuccessful run at state legislature. Perhaps to increase his local political fortunes, he bragged of his participation in the mob, & even that it was he who had placed the rope around Crawford's neck. Adams even specifically asked William Beard to print in his paper (the Scimitar) that Adams had been the ringleader of the group.
In 2005, the 109th Congress of the United States Senate passed Resolution 39, which was a formal apology to African-Americans for Congress's failure to pass any kind of anti-lynching legislation despite over 200 anti-lynching bills having been introduced to Congress. The resolution was issued before the descendants of Anthony Crawford, among other surviving descendants of lynching victims, & marked the first occasion that Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any reason, whereas Congress had in the past apologized to other ethnic groups (e.g. Japanese-Americans) for the actions of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)
Mr. Crawford was an African-American man murdered by a lynch mob. He was born during the early Reconstruction Era, at the end of the Civil War. His father became the owner of a modest acreage of cotton fields on the Little River, about seven miles west of Abbeville, which he worked with his son Anthony who was an ambitious and literate child. Anthony routinely walked seven miles to school in Abbeville. He inherited the land after his father's death & increased it from 1883 through 1903.
By 1916, his land holdings had expanded to 427 acres (as much as 600, according to some sources). He was the father of twelve sons and four daughters. Many of them had settled on plots adjoining that of their father. With a net worth of approximately $20,000 to $25,000 in 1916 dollars, Crawford was without doubt one of the richest men in Abbeville County. Around 1895, Crawford co-founded the Industrial Union of Abbeville County, which was devoted to the "material, moral and intellectual advance of the colored people".
He was also known for his refusal to tolerate disrespect or defiance in any form. Once, when his church's preacher delivered a sermon decrying Crawford's meddling in church affairs, Crawford jumped out of his seat, struck the man and fired him on the spot. This extended even to whites: "The day a white man hits me is the day I die", he was quoted as having said to his children. After his death, the Charleston News & Courier (now the Post & Courier) described Crawford as "rich, for a negro, & he was insolent along with it".
On October 21, 1916, Crawford was taking two loads of cotton & a load of seed into Abbeville. He had a disagreement over the price of cottonseed with W.D. Barksdale, a white store owner. After Crawford left the store, one of Barksdale's employees followed him outside & hit him on the head with an ax handle. Crawford called for help, which drew the attention of Sheriff R.M. Burts. The Sheriff arrested Crawford (most likely for his own protection) as a mob of angry whites was already beginning to gather. Crawford was held at the jail briefly then released later that day on $15 bail. The police allowed him to exit from a side door, but the mob saw him anyway & chased him into a nearby cotton mill. Crawford had hid in the boiler room. A salesman named McKinny Cann entered the boiler room following Crawford. Crawford grabbed a hammer & knocked Cann out. Although the mill workers attempted to stop it, Crawford was stabbed & severely beaten by the mob. Sheriff R.M. Burts arrested Crawford once more, much to the chagrin of the mob of whites. The sheriff could only get Crawford away from the mob by promising Cann's brothers he wouldn't try to sneak Crawford out of town before the full extent of McKinny Cann's injuries were known. As it happened, Cann was not badly hurt, although Crawford was. He was treated by Doctor C.C. Gamble, who also was mayor of Abbeville, & also happened to be a relative of a man named James Rodgers who had been shot in December 1905 during an altercation with Crawford's sons. Gamble announced that Crawford would likely die from his wounds. The fear that Crawford might die before the mob could get to him collided with the fear that the sheriff might spirit him out of town. Around 3 p.m., about 200 white men besieged the jail, captured & disarmed Sheriff Burts, & abducted Crawford. Crawford was dragged through the black section of town with a rope around his neck. The mob then stole a lumber wagon from a black driver & used it to take Crawford to a fairground nearby. Crawford was lynched from a tree there while armed whites used his body for target practice.
The paper's headline the next day read "Negro Strung Up & Shot to Pieces". After dark, the county coroner, F.W.R. Nance, took a jury to the fairground & cut down Crawford's mutilated remains. The coroner found Crawford had died "at the hands of parties unknown". South Carolina governor Richard Irvine Manning III was quick to denounce the murder. He ordered a full investigation of the crime by both Sheriff Burts & State Solicitor Robert Archer Cooper, exhorting them to hand down indictments of the mob participants. Many Abbeville residents were held & questioned, including Cann's three brothers, but it became increasingly apparent that no resident of Abbeville would testify against any member of the mob; moreover it would be virtually impossible to select an impartial jury from the ranks of the city. Manning called for the trial's venue to be moved to a different county, although nothing came of it. Meanwhile, a document purportedly written by members of the lynch mob themselves was published in the Abbeville Scimitar: We are ALL responsible for the conditions that caused Crawford's death. Those involved might have gone too far, but they are white men & Crawford was black. The black must submit to the white or the white will destroy . There were several hundred who participated in this lynching, & nearly ALL the others were well-wishers, therefore to pick out a few to satisfy a newly imported mawkish sentiment, is pitiful & cowardly. Men of Abbeville, the eyes of all white men are upon you. Acquit yourselves as white men. The conditions made by US ALL, make us all responsible, so let's not ask only eight to shoulder the whole burden. Answer a mawkish sentiment generated by hypocrisy & craven fear with the ringing verdict, Not guilty.. Whether or not this document was genuine is open to question. The publisher of the Scimitar, William P. "Bull Moose" Beard, was a white supremacist. Beard & his editorials in the Scimitar openly ridiculed Governor Manning's attempts to bring any members of the mob to trial, writing that Crawford's murder was "inevitable & racially justifiable". Other newspapers in the area took a different tone, like the Press & Banner, which pointed out that by driving away cheap African-American labor, the lynch mobs were bankrupting South Carolina farmers. These two facets of the debate were indicative of a growing schism in the South: middle- & upper-class whites were beginning to disapprove of lynchings, & the belief that lynch mobs were an "expansive luxury" the South could no longer afford was beginning to take root. In a civic meeting at the Abbeville courthouse on October 23, 1917, the white citizens of Abbeville, including many members of the lynch mob, voted to expel the remainder of Crawford's family from South Carolina, & to seize their considerable property holdings. They also voted to close down all the black-owned businesses in Abbeville. A consortium of white businessmen, worrying about the economic effect of such a decision, opposed these decisions. After the meeting, they personally spoke with Crawford's family & detailed the situation to them. The Crawfords agreed to leave by mid-November. This allayed the urgency of the voting whites at the courthouse, but it was just a delaying tactic. The white businessmen spent the intervening time building a consensus against the mob sentiment, & on November 6, 1917, they announced they had declared "war" on those who had voted to expel the Crawfords. Resolutions were passed to promise equal protection to citizens both black & white, denounce extra-judicial action, to bring up the possibilities that a local militia might be created, or that federal intervention might be invited, to prevent such activities in the future. In addition to the racist motivations of those who wished to uphold the white status quo over an African-American man who maintained a defiantly confident & aggressive posture in the presence of whites, & the generally poor tenor of race relations in Abbeville in general, historians have also speculated that the mob was partially motivated by a desire to humiliate & discredit Abbeville Sheriff R.W. Burts, &, by extension, Governor Manning, by local white politicians. Burts came from a wealthy family, & he had been unexpectedly appointed to his post by the comparatively enlightened & genteel Manning, despite Burts' lack of law enforcement qualifications. Many local white politicians were angered by this, & thought the job should have gone to Police Chief Joe Johnson. Coming up for election, Burts later defeated candidates Jess Cann (brother to McKinny Cann) & George White, two men who would play instrumental roles in the actions of the lynch mob. In the primary of South Carolina's gubernatorial election in July 1916, three months before Crawford's lynching, Manning had debated former governor (& future senator) of South Carolina Coleman Livingston Blease in Abbeville. Blease was known for his racist rhetoric, & he hurled invective at Manning's progressive approach toward race relations, claiming that this attitude had specifically incited a number of assaults by black men against white men & women. In the primary, Blease overwhelmingly took Abbeville County, but Manning narrowly won the state in a runoff election. An acolyte of Blease's, a young lawyer named Sam Adams, also made an unsuccessful run at state legislature. Perhaps to increase his local political fortunes, he bragged of his participation in the mob, & even that it was he who had placed the rope around Crawford's neck. Adams even specifically asked William Beard to print in his paper (the Scimitar) that Adams had been the ringleader of the group.
In 2005, the 109th Congress of the United States Senate passed Resolution 39, which was a formal apology to African-Americans for Congress's failure to pass any kind of anti-lynching legislation despite over 200 anti-lynching bills having been introduced to Congress. The resolution was issued before the descendants of Anthony Crawford, among other surviving descendants of lynching victims, & marked the first occasion that Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any reason, whereas Congress had in the past apologized to other ethnic groups (e.g. Japanese-Americans) for the actions of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)
By 1916, his land holdings had expanded to 427 acres (as much as 600, according to some sources). He was the father of twelve sons and four daughters. Many of them had settled on plots adjoining that of their father. With a net worth of approximately $20,000 to $25,000 in 1916 dollars, Crawford was without doubt one of the richest men in Abbeville County. Around 1895, Crawford co-founded the Industrial Union of Abbeville County, which was devoted to the "material, moral and intellectual advance of the colored people".
He was also known for his refusal to tolerate disrespect or defiance in any form. Once, when his church's preacher delivered a sermon decrying Crawford's meddling in church affairs, Crawford jumped out of his seat, struck the man and fired him on the spot. This extended even to whites: "The day a white man hits me is the day I die", he was quoted as having said to his children. After his death, the Charleston News & Courier (now the Post & Courier) described Crawford as "rich, for a negro, & he was insolent along with it".
On October 21, 1916, Crawford was taking two loads of cotton & a load of seed into Abbeville. He had a disagreement over the price of cottonseed with W.D. Barksdale, a white store owner. After Crawford left the store, one of Barksdale's employees followed him outside & hit him on the head with an ax handle. Crawford called for help, which drew the attention of Sheriff R.M. Burts. The Sheriff arrested Crawford (most likely for his own protection) as a mob of angry whites was already beginning to gather. Crawford was held at the jail briefly then released later that day on $15 bail. The police allowed him to exit from a side door, but the mob saw him anyway & chased him into a nearby cotton mill. Crawford had hid in the boiler room. A salesman named McKinny Cann entered the boiler room following Crawford. Crawford grabbed a hammer & knocked Cann out. Although the mill workers attempted to stop it, Crawford was stabbed & severely beaten by the mob. Sheriff R.M. Burts arrested Crawford once more, much to the chagrin of the mob of whites. The sheriff could only get Crawford away from the mob by promising Cann's brothers he wouldn't try to sneak Crawford out of town before the full extent of McKinny Cann's injuries were known. As it happened, Cann was not badly hurt, although Crawford was. He was treated by Doctor C.C. Gamble, who also was mayor of Abbeville, & also happened to be a relative of a man named James Rodgers who had been shot in December 1905 during an altercation with Crawford's sons. Gamble announced that Crawford would likely die from his wounds. The fear that Crawford might die before the mob could get to him collided with the fear that the sheriff might spirit him out of town. Around 3 p.m., about 200 white men besieged the jail, captured & disarmed Sheriff Burts, & abducted Crawford. Crawford was dragged through the black section of town with a rope around his neck. The mob then stole a lumber wagon from a black driver & used it to take Crawford to a fairground nearby. Crawford was lynched from a tree there while armed whites used his body for target practice.
The paper's headline the next day read "Negro Strung Up & Shot to Pieces". After dark, the county coroner, F.W.R. Nance, took a jury to the fairground & cut down Crawford's mutilated remains. The coroner found Crawford had died "at the hands of parties unknown". South Carolina governor Richard Irvine Manning III was quick to denounce the murder. He ordered a full investigation of the crime by both Sheriff Burts & State Solicitor Robert Archer Cooper, exhorting them to hand down indictments of the mob participants. Many Abbeville residents were held & questioned, including Cann's three brothers, but it became increasingly apparent that no resident of Abbeville would testify against any member of the mob; moreover it would be virtually impossible to select an impartial jury from the ranks of the city. Manning called for the trial's venue to be moved to a different county, although nothing came of it. Meanwhile, a document purportedly written by members of the lynch mob themselves was published in the Abbeville Scimitar: We are ALL responsible for the conditions that caused Crawford's death. Those involved might have gone too far, but they are white men & Crawford was black. The black must submit to the white or the white will destroy . There were several hundred who participated in this lynching, & nearly ALL the others were well-wishers, therefore to pick out a few to satisfy a newly imported mawkish sentiment, is pitiful & cowardly. Men of Abbeville, the eyes of all white men are upon you. Acquit yourselves as white men. The conditions made by US ALL, make us all responsible, so let's not ask only eight to shoulder the whole burden. Answer a mawkish sentiment generated by hypocrisy & craven fear with the ringing verdict, Not guilty.. Whether or not this document was genuine is open to question. The publisher of the Scimitar, William P. "Bull Moose" Beard, was a white supremacist. Beard & his editorials in the Scimitar openly ridiculed Governor Manning's attempts to bring any members of the mob to trial, writing that Crawford's murder was "inevitable & racially justifiable". Other newspapers in the area took a different tone, like the Press & Banner, which pointed out that by driving away cheap African-American labor, the lynch mobs were bankrupting South Carolina farmers. These two facets of the debate were indicative of a growing schism in the South: middle- & upper-class whites were beginning to disapprove of lynchings, & the belief that lynch mobs were an "expansive luxury" the South could no longer afford was beginning to take root. In a civic meeting at the Abbeville courthouse on October 23, 1917, the white citizens of Abbeville, including many members of the lynch mob, voted to expel the remainder of Crawford's family from South Carolina, & to seize their considerable property holdings. They also voted to close down all the black-owned businesses in Abbeville. A consortium of white businessmen, worrying about the economic effect of such a decision, opposed these decisions. After the meeting, they personally spoke with Crawford's family & detailed the situation to them. The Crawfords agreed to leave by mid-November. This allayed the urgency of the voting whites at the courthouse, but it was just a delaying tactic. The white businessmen spent the intervening time building a consensus against the mob sentiment, & on November 6, 1917, they announced they had declared "war" on those who had voted to expel the Crawfords. Resolutions were passed to promise equal protection to citizens both black & white, denounce extra-judicial action, to bring up the possibilities that a local militia might be created, or that federal intervention might be invited, to prevent such activities in the future. In addition to the racist motivations of those who wished to uphold the white status quo over an African-American man who maintained a defiantly confident & aggressive posture in the presence of whites, & the generally poor tenor of race relations in Abbeville in general, historians have also speculated that the mob was partially motivated by a desire to humiliate & discredit Abbeville Sheriff R.W. Burts, &, by extension, Governor Manning, by local white politicians. Burts came from a wealthy family, & he had been unexpectedly appointed to his post by the comparatively enlightened & genteel Manning, despite Burts' lack of law enforcement qualifications. Many local white politicians were angered by this, & thought the job should have gone to Police Chief Joe Johnson. Coming up for election, Burts later defeated candidates Jess Cann (brother to McKinny Cann) & George White, two men who would play instrumental roles in the actions of the lynch mob. In the primary of South Carolina's gubernatorial election in July 1916, three months before Crawford's lynching, Manning had debated former governor (& future senator) of South Carolina Coleman Livingston Blease in Abbeville. Blease was known for his racist rhetoric, & he hurled invective at Manning's progressive approach toward race relations, claiming that this attitude had specifically incited a number of assaults by black men against white men & women. In the primary, Blease overwhelmingly took Abbeville County, but Manning narrowly won the state in a runoff election. An acolyte of Blease's, a young lawyer named Sam Adams, also made an unsuccessful run at state legislature. Perhaps to increase his local political fortunes, he bragged of his participation in the mob, & even that it was he who had placed the rope around Crawford's neck. Adams even specifically asked William Beard to print in his paper (the Scimitar) that Adams had been the ringleader of the group.
In 2005, the 109th Congress of the United States Senate passed Resolution 39, which was a formal apology to African-Americans for Congress's failure to pass any kind of anti-lynching legislation despite over 200 anti-lynching bills having been introduced to Congress. The resolution was issued before the descendants of Anthony Crawford, among other surviving descendants of lynching victims, & marked the first occasion that Congress had apologized to African-Americans for any reason, whereas Congress had in the past apologized to other ethnic groups (e.g. Japanese-Americans) for the actions of the United States. (Source: Wikipedia)
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